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Category: Insight

Palmetto Islands County Park

On Sunday we took a trip with some friends to the Palmetto Islands County Park in Mount Pleasant, SC to let the kids burn off some energy and enjoy perfect spring weather.

The kids had fun on the Big Toy Playground, and eventually we moved the fun over to the observation tower, which has another play area built off of it. This is great because the kids can climb and slide while the parent relax up top to enjoy the view.

While up at the top, my wife spotted this little bluebird on the branches of a tree right next to the tower. When I zoomed in on the bird, I noticed that it had caught lunch in its beak!

The park is called Palmetto Islands because it is a series of little islands in the marshland connected by boardwalks. We decided to take a hike and explore a little.

We made it to the last island which was home to some fishing docks. I had this great shot of the kids all lined up looking into the water off the edge of the dock and before I could squeeze the shutter, they decided to get up and go to the other side. Darn you meddling kids! Luckily, our buddy Krista had the mom-like reflexes to tell the kids that there was an awesome turtle on the other side and they all came back wide-eyed as can be looking for a reptilian swimmer. Hence, I was able to get this shot:

As we hiked along, I took advantage of the plethora of palm fronds and tried to manipulate my position and the palms themselves to catch the sunlight in interesting ways. The photo up at the top of this post was magnificently back-lit, while this photo was taken half in shadow:

Old Architecture

One of the subjects that I’ve been leaning on since I started my Abstract Photo Project a little over a week ago is architecture. There’s no shortage of interesting elements in a classic building or home – something that makes me sad about the majority of today’s cheap pre-fab buildings that we see all over the place. Most strip malls and steel buildings are just offensive to the senses, so when you take the time to admire the quality in design of a great piece of architecture it’s all the more meaningful today.

On the flip side, I do enjoy the urban decay of old buildings. The texture of the peeling paint and the off kilter shape of a dilapidated building structure makes for an interesting photograph.

Looking up close at the features of a great building and changing your point of view can give you endless compositions to play with the lines and shapes of the building. Old banks and government buildings have great columns that are begging for a wide angle view of them.

I also like to manipulate the angle of the camera when shooting wide to distort the geometry of the building. You can create a funhouse-like effect with just the tilt of your lens.

Playing with color, contrast, and exposure leads to some very interesting photos when dealing with architecture. The iPhone is a great tool for experimenting with extreme abstract shots of buildings. I often find myself looking for a different angle with just my phone’s camera, only to start editing away and creating something completely new out of it right there on my phone.

Look Up!

I was out taking real estate photos this morning when my wife Amy told me to look up in a tree at a cardinal. The colors were magnificent! A deep clear blue sky and a dead yellowish brown limb with a bright red little bird on it. I took the shot fast enough to capture it flying away, which is depicted here in this sequence:

I just love the negative space and simplicity. The real trick is what my wife told me – to look up! Always keep your eyes wandering around a scene because your next favorite shot might be in a direction you’re not currently facing.

Kulture Klash 7 Recap

How do they do it? The organizers of Kulture Klash, the low country’s festival of art, dance, & music have managed to top themselves again. For the 7th installment of bi-annual event, the stand-out attraction for me was the live wakeboard demonstration provided by Chuck and Chalice to coincide with the festival’s water theme.

OK, lets rewind a bit to yesterday afternoon, when the site of the festival was freely opened up to the public to view the art installations.

In addition to art for sale, the show featured artist interpretations of the quintessential Surf Shack:

This photo is all about BadJon, his framed art, and his giant Alien Bees ring flash:

Moving along outside, as the crew put the finishing touches on the wakeboard pools, the kids and dogs took advantage of the opportunity to get as dirty as possible!

What better way to cool off in the hot Charleston sun than with an all-natural snow cone from Rena Larch and her Happy Camper Snoballs?

Artist and the man behind (and in front of) the scenes at Kulture Klash, Scott Debus presented my kids with the coveted Blue Power Ranger, which also squeaks. I know this because I was woken up this morning to the sound of a squeaking Power Ranger!

The free art viewing was the perfect place to check out local art with your family. The kids were able to run around and be kids, people brought their pets, and the atmosphere was very relaxed. We also had a good vantage point to check out some of the Charleston Air Show, which local photo buddy Montwerx was covering from behind his lens.

Now it’s time for the party! I returned to the Klash a little after 8:00PM to an already packed house.

There was live music, dancing, and hula hoop girls all around! So began an adventure in low and no-light photography.

This works to my advantage, because the best way to tell the story of a party like this is to show the motion of it.

Also on hand was the newly founded Girls Rock Charleston, who performed an interpretive dance to live drumming:

The roar of the guitar and beat of the drums reigned in the alleyway next to Storehouse 10 as the band named Cusses took the stage.

As with past Kulture Klash Arts Festivals, there were live works of art being created during the course of the night, including a giant surfboard and this huge canvas:

Over in the next alley was the Urban Wakeboarding demo as well as another stage. The wakeboaders started out on one end of the alley on the back of a pickup truck. On the other end was a winch that pulled them across two pools joined by a rail jump in the middle.

Needless to say, nighttime action sports photography is not the easiest thing to do! That didn’t stop the throngs of cell phone videographers that lined the barrier broadcasting to their Facebook friends the watersports event of the evening. Sometimes I feel we’re all the stars of The Truman Show. So says the guy with the camera…

On stage was the dub sounds of Charleston’s Dubplates:

It was time for me to depart. The amazing thing was that at 11:00PM, a whole new crowd was coming in through the gate to experience a whole other set of performances. It’s an amazing festival that truly is whatever you make of it, and I couldn’t be more impressed by just how much awesomeness is packed into one evening. I’d love to see everybody’s photos and hear their stories about the evening, so please share!

As usual, you can check out the full extensive set of photos I took on my Flickr Stream.

Thunderbirds Practice

Yesterday, I was over by the old Navy base in North Charleston and I heard the roar of jets overhead. I looked up and 5 F-16’s screamed across the sky. The telltale logo on the underside of the jets can’t be mistaken – the US Air Force Thunderbirds are in town!

Luckily, I had my camera with me and I quickly pulled over and waited. I started out shooting manually, and when I finally got the planes in frame in a really cool formation, I let the shutter rip. After they were out of frame, I checked the LCD and most of the shots stunk out loud. I had manually set everything beforehand, but I neglected to realize that as I panned the bright and sunny sky, the correct exposure changed drastically. I had to change my game plan and set the camera to Aperture Priority mode and the ISO to auto. Then the results started to vastly improve. At this point in my photographic journey, an F-16 is still a bit too fast to adjust to manually 😉

Reflecting

It seems like only a few months ago that I was reflecting on the past year’s achievements and was all gung ho to get started with the new year (oh yeah, it was almost six months ago). Then life happened and smacked me down. Fast-forward to today when my wife took a picture of me this morning while I was driving. Looking at it depressed me because it made me realize I haven’t kick-started my year to be where I want to be enough. It was like looking in the mirror naked without your clothes on to cover up the hurt. I need to light the fire up under my ass and the best was I know how is by setting goals and taking photos.

The first goal is to further define myself as a photographer. Looking at my past work with a critical eye is not very fun, but it’s necessary. I’m trying to identify the trademark things that I do that help define my style. In order to further this process, I’m going to start a new month long photo project. The theme of my project is going to be abstract photography. My ultimate goal with this is to create at least one abstract photo that has a purposeful meaning – something that I can show somebody and say “This is what I can do”.

My first photo will be this one of a barbed wire fence – at this angle it reminded me of a metallic American Flag. I think it’s a good start, but I’ve got a ways to go. I’ve created a set on my Flickr stream for this project, and like my past projects, I’ll periodically remind you of it here.

Two New Beach Prints Available

As I was choosing prints I wanted to show for this weekend’s Kulture Klash Arts Festival, I was going through my library of photos to find water themed images. I found two that stuck out for me, but they didn’t work for the triptych idea I ended up going with. I’ve decided to put them up in the store and offer them to you!

The first one, which is shown above, was made in Freeport last summer. It’s entitled “Reef Rafters” because there is a silhouette of to people on a raft out by the reef. I originally processed this photo as a color image (shown here), but decided to crop it down a little bit and convert it to black & white. I love the way the clouds and the water work together and the monotone version really makes that feature stand out.

The other photo was made on Sullivans Island in South Carolina in August of 2010. The lone beach-goer sitting on the shore reading made for a serene subject. It’s nice to get a single subject against a vast backdrop like this – I find it quite peaceful. I’m getting ready to spend some quality time at the beaches again as the weather gets warmer, and these images make me want Summer to be here already!

Kudos To Miller’s Professional Imaging

I wanted to write a post just to share with you the work that I’m contributing to Kulture Klash 7, but I need to first share with you my account of the great service I received from Miller’s Professional Imaging (who are the people behind Zenfolio/MPIX which is who I use for all of my prints).

I’m quite the busy guy, with a family to support (I’m writing this post as I tend to my daughter who’s home sick from school today) and another business to run. Although I knew that this weekend’s KK7 Arts Festival was this coming up quickly, I failed to note that the artwork drop off date was today (April 5th)! I had ordered my prints over the weekend and when I got a reminder email from the organizers of the festival about the drop off date yesterday, I had a mini panic attack because I wouldn’t have my work ready in time. I quickly sent an email to Zenfolio’s support people and explained my screw-up and asked if I could bump up the shipping to overnight. Not only did they get back to me quickly, they rushed the processing of the prints and upgraded my shipping at no extra cost! I was prepared to pay whatever it takes and they just took care of me at their expense – In my opinion that is simply amazing customer service that goes above and beyond. I’m so proud to have them as my printing partner for JWNPhoto.

The work I’m showing at Kulture Klash was really not what I had originally planned on showing this time around. I had planned on keeping a musical theme with my photos and to have a relationship between them all. When the organizers announced that the theme of the festival for KK7 was going to be water, I threw out my original idea and started thinking about water themed photos. I have a lot of shoreline photos but I didn’t want to come off as kitschy, especially in this festival’s environment which tends to cater to a more underground art scene. Don’t get me wrong, I love a classic sunset photo and I truly love trying to differentiate myself from the crowd while still creating a photo of the same sand, water, and sky. I thought of some of the common traits in my favorite shoreline photos that I’ve created recently – bold color, portrait orientation, & negative space. I remembered that unlike a photo competition – there are no rules to an art show. I could present a triptych of three different images that share a common theme and make an even stronger presentation.

The images at the top of the post are three 20″x30″ prints arranged intentionally in order and placement by the time of day and horizon. The first image was made from the Pitt Street Bridge of the Charleston Peninsula at sunset. I love the crimson color of the sky and the two cranes that look almost like they’re worshiping the falling sun. I remember a seemingly intoxicated lady who walked by while I was making this shot and she commented that the sunset was not very nice. I guess that’s why they say opinions are like asses… everybody has one. The second photo was made at Shem Creek from the bridge. I zoomed in tightly to capture a very golden sky – I love the contrast of the blue shrimping boat and the reflections of the boardwalk lights in the water. This shot also has a diagonal line formed by the dock and boardwalk that is something I tend to look for in a lot of my landscape photos. Finally, the third photo is of the recent Supermoon. I wanted a simple and bold graphical image of the water and the color and shape of the unusually bright moon. It’s very interesting to note that local photographer Robert Donovan (and a host of other local photogs) were all in the same area taking pictures of the same moon, but with very different results. Robert’s image is very similar in composition, but his focus on the detail of the moon made for a completely different image! He’s exposure is very different, so the colors are radically different as well. It just goes to prove that there is a lot of artistic interpretation going on when you get behind the camera and develop the finished product.

Another piece that I’m showing is this diptych that I made for a Gizmodo.com photo challenge. I wanted to show a picture featuring a person, because I don’t want to be typecast as a landscape photographer. I love the feeling of this photo – The saturation and contrast are very expressive and the Elmo T-Shirt is begging for your eye’s attention, much like the subject’s (my daughter) body language is longing for the attention of the waitress.

I hope to see a lot of friends at the festival this weekend – don’t forget to get your tickets early and save a few bucks!

Postcard Portfolio

Front of Postcards

Just in time for Kulture Klash 7, I put together what I’m calling a “Postcard Portfolio”. Inspired by my wife’s need for “Just Sold” postcards that she’s had me designing for her real estate business. I was so impressed with the print quality of the postcards for the price I was paying that I decided to make some for myself.

Back of Postcards

The most difficult thing was to pick a handful of photos that represent what I’m currently doing with my photography. From the mysterious trolly cars in an open field, a simple, yet alternative perspective of a sunflower, to an abstract photo of my guitar, the photos featured on the front sides of the cards are ones that I chose to represent the fine art side of my photography.

On the flip side of the cards I wanted to show people in order to showcase my love for candid, portraiture, and event photography. The award winning shot of kids playing in a fountain in North Charleston, a live performance photo of Less Than Jake, and a recent portrait of these newlyweds.

I decided to keep the printed text on these to a bare minimum – Just my logo and the address of this website. I want the photos to speak for themselves and not to be overly commercialized. Look for these at Kulture Klash as well as any other events I attend – just ask and hopefully I’ll have some on me!

Kayla & Kegan

My kids’ grade school held their annual community fair this past weekend, and my son was very excited to get a chance to hang out with one of his favorite classmates, Kayla!